


The things we should have talked about

by janet_mayfire



Series: The Edge of Reality [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Being fictional is hard work, Drinking, Getting their facts straight, Jazz - Freeform, Steve Rogers & Tony Stark Friendship, grownups being grownup
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-26
Updated: 2018-01-26
Packaged: 2019-03-09 14:45:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13483698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janet_mayfire/pseuds/janet_mayfire
Summary: Two men walk into a bar and have a serious conversation.  One they should have had ages ago.





	The things we should have talked about

Steve glanced over at Tony and caught his eye as Phil and Clint snogged. He indicated the door with his head, and headed out into the corridor. Moments later, Tony joined him.

“This feels like an ending,” he said quietly. “I’m going to go for a drink.”

“Good idea,” Tony agreed. “You been to the Edge, yet?”

Steve nodded. “That was you I saw in there the other evening, being cuddled by the Buckymonster?”

Tony grinned. “Yep. He tends to be touch-deprived, and I like a good cuddle.”

Steve rolled his eyes. “As we all know well.”

“Mind if I join you? It’s jazz night tonight.”

“Jazz night?” Steve asked as they stepped into the elevator.

“Yeah. Buckymonster plays the piano, the female version of me plays the clarinet, Thor’s on drums, and T’Challa plays double bass. They’re really rather good.”

Steve blinked in surprise. “I didn’t know Thor was musical.”

“That’s one of the things I like about the Edge. You get to find out all sorts of things about people that you’d never imagine.”

Steve blinked again when they left the Tower. “Um, since when was the Edge opposite the Tower?” he asked as they crossed the road. 

The bouncer heard him. “The Edge appears wherever and whenever it is needed,” he told Steve. “I admitted a couple of your Howlin’ Commandos buddies a few days ago, from a Hydra bunker. They thought it was a trick. Can’t say I blame ‘em.”

“You can appear back in time?” Steve asked, rolling his eyes at the way his men had mysteriously failed to mention it to him. Although, when he thought about it, the Edge wasn’t the kind of place you casually mentioned to people.

“Back in time, forward in the future, across the other side of the galaxy, and in all nine Realms.”

“Wow,” Tony commented, and they went inside.

There was a stage at the far end of the room that Steve could have sworn hadn’t been there before. He shrugged. They must have hidden it behind a wall or something. It was clearly there for the jazz, though, because Buckymonster, Thor, Toni, and T’Challa were there, setting up.

They fronted the bar and were greeted by Alphonse, who handed Tony a scotch on the rocks, and Steve an Asgardian Mead and Dry, without waiting to be asked. 

They settled down in some nearby armchairs, and Steve leaned back and closed his eyes with a sigh.

“Something on your mind, Capsicle?” Tony asked.

“Apart from being tired of living up to everybody's expectations, even though they often contradict each other? Yeah. I’m starting to wonder if I’m out of character.”

Tony blinked in surprise. “How do you mean?”

“I’m thinking about that whole Accords business. There’s something screwy about it.”

“More than just the way General Ross was trying to convince us that he had the right to behave like Hitler?”

“Yeah. You’re an intelligent person who's savvy enough not to fall for stuff like that, and you didn't hesitate to sign up, even though you of all people had to know how crippling a committee would be to us. I’m starting to wonder why I didn’t try to talk things through with you. I’ve always considered myself a reasonable person, and that’s a reasonable person thing to do. I should have been battering your door down if I couldn’t find another way to talk to you. And it didn’t happen. There was no proper talking until you managed to get me alone in Siberia.”

“Hmm,” Tony said. “And you got my point pretty quickly when we did.”

There was a raucous noise from the band as they got their instruments in tune that interrupted the conversation.

After the band stopped, Steve went on. “So I’m wondering if the me that isn't generated by fanfiction is also out of character.”

Tony looked worried. “You may be right. But is that even possible?”

“What other explanation is there? And please don’t suggest Wanda.”

“It is fairly unlikely, I suppose. But it is within her abilities, and whoever sets canon may well be using her on purpose, to make you do out of character things.”

“Granted,” Steve admitted. “But it didn’t feel like her magic. I know what it feels like when Wanda uses magic on me. It feels completely different to being out of character. And the Accords business didn’t feel like having a spell cast on me.”

Tony nodded slowly. “You do have more experience than the rest of us in having magic cast on you. And being out of character. With the possible exception of Wanda herself. But what do you propose we do about it?”

Steve sighed heavily, and sipped his drink. “I wish I knew. To be honest, I’m not even entirely sure that I was out of character for that story. It might even have been a genuine attempt at character development from the writers. But it felt so forced!”

“So you were a victim of bad writing, rather than being out of character?”

Steve rubbed the bridge of his nose. “It never even occurred to me that the two could be different things.”

Tony got a faraway look on his face that Steve associated with Science. “Maybe they aren’t different. Maybe bad writing is a subset of being out of character. But then again, perhaps it’s a case of overlap. I think we need a larger sample size before we can start drawing conclusions.”

Up on stage, the band started to play Blue Skies. Steve leaned back in his chair and let the jazz wash over him whilst Tony considered their conversation, and his growing hypothesis. It was a soothing melody, and the band played it well.

“I wanted to thank you, by the way,” he said to Tony as Blue Skies wound down and they started on the more upbeat If I Were A Bell.

“Oh? What for?”

“The legal challenge to the Accords. I couldn’t believe they were thrown out so easily!”

Tony grinned. “It was obvious from the first that what Ross was trying to do was illegal as well as immoral. I only cooperated with him so that he didn’t have an excuse to chuck me into his black site prison with the rest of you, where I wouldn’t have access to any of my usual resources. I couldn’t believe you didn’t see it.” 

“Some of us weren’t raised to know much about the law,” Steve said sourly. “What’s a black site prison anyway?”

“Gotta love those Depression-era educational standards,” Tony said with a sigh. “A black site prison is one that’s set up in international waters, in an attempt to dodge the usual legal safeguards that prisoners have when they’re within the USA. Look it up on Google some time. At least the US application of the Accords are being properly debated this time, now that Ross is out of the way.”

“Yeah. How did you swing that, by the way?”

Tony grinned again. “Easy. The way that Ross was applying the Accords, and the way you guys were treated, were in direct violation of several sections of the Constitution. So that’s what I got him on. Have a chat with my lawyers sometime if you want the exact details. They’ll bore you senseless, probably, but I don’t employ people for things I can do easily myself. And when Congress realised what Ross had been up to, they did the rest. So now, he and many of his little piggies are behind bars.”

Tony fell silent, and Steve watched as he turned his glass around and around in his hand, staring in apparent fascination at the movement of the slowly melting ice cubes. “Is something wrong?” Steve asked.

“I have a question for you.”

“Shoot.”

“Did you really know that Hydra used Bucky to kill Mom and Dad?”

Steve blinked. “Why do you ask?”

“Well, Jarvis and I went through the data from the Shield dump with a fine tooth comb, and that video footage wasn’t there. When I read through the forensic evidence, it screamed murder, but there was nothing there that said who actually did it.”

Steve sighed. “Nat and I confronted Zola, and he hinted pretty heavily that the Winter Soldier was the one they ordered to do it. He wouldn’t have made hints like that if he didn’t know.”

Tony gave him a skeptical look. “Did Zola imply that the Winter Soldier did it, or just that Hydra had ordered the hit?”

A guilty look flashed across Steve’s face as Steve realised that he had been jumping to conclusions, and he knew that it was exactly the same face he’d pulled in the bunker. Tony was looking carefully at his face, and Steve knew that he had not misinterpreted this time.

“It’s a pity that most of the fanfics that were written have jumped to the same conclusion that you did,” Tony commented. “Because if you hadn’t actually seen that footage before the bunker, then it could have come from anywhere. I’m not saying that it isn’t genuine - but videos can be altered. It’s easy. I know that it was murder and not an accident. But it could have been anybody.”

“Even somebody other than Bucky.”

“That’s right,” Tony replied, raising his glass to Steve. “Thing is, if you hadn’t behaved as though you’d already known that Barnes had been used that day, if you’d looked shocked instead, I would have assumed that it had been altered.”

“Tony, I’m sorry.”

Tony laughed, a quiet little laugh. “Stupid. Aren’t we?”

Steve laughed too, and set his glass down. “We are.” Then he pulled Tony out of his chair and into a hug, which Tony leaned into gladly.

When they pulled back, Steve looked down at Tony and, for the first time saw the lines on his face and the dark circles under his eyes. “Are you alright?”

Tony rubbed his forehead tiredly. “I’m worn out. Three quarters of the fic I’m in include me being on a workshop binge. I’ve had five 36 hour workshop binges in the last week - and given that that means my week has had 12 hours more in it than the laws of physics normally allow for, in workshop binges alone…”

Steve winced. “It sounds like they love you a little too much there.”

“Normally I’m an attention whore. But right now, I’d welcome a whole bundle of indifference from them.”

“You know, this corner is pretty secluded,” Steve told him. “And Alphonse told me that at least half of the people in the place will defend your nap time with their lives.”

Tony winced. “I wish I could hate him for that. But honestly?”

Steve waited for Tony to finish the sentence, but the completion never came. He looked over at the overworked genius, and was not surprised to discover that he had dropped off between one word and the next. With a smile, he turned his attention to the rest of the bar.


End file.
